Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Hazel stood on the stoop of the townhouse, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders despite the mild afternoon air. She had a book tucked beneath the folds of the wool. It was hidden, protected… stolen.
The word thudded in her chest with every heartbeat.
She had taken it. She had taken a book from a wing Greyson had all but forbidden her to enter.
She had taken what he’d explicitly asked her to leave untouched.
She had taken something fragile and precious, something intricately tied to memories he guarded so fiercely.
Hazel swallowed hard and rang the bell. The sound echoed in her bones like the tolling of a church bell announcing her guilt.
I am a thief, she thought miserably. And a horrible person.
But then she glanced down at the faint outline of the book beneath her cloak and straightened her spine.
She tried to remind herself that she was not a thief, but rather a caretaker.
She was a woman who saw someone lonely and lost in the shadow of faded days, and wished to give that someone a small piece of joy.
She had made a promise to herself the moment she left the west wing: if Greyson’s mother loved those stories once, Hazel would not allow them to gather dust in silence.
At that exact moment, the door opened. Mrs. Atherton nearly jumped with delight.
“Oh! Your Grace!” she exclaimed, wiping her hands quickly on her apron before beaming up at Hazel. “What a lovely surprise! And what perfect timing, you must come in at once. At once!”
Hazel smiled. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Atherton.”
The housekeeper ushered her inside with all the fuss of a woman receiving visiting royalty.
“You’ve brightened the whole day, you have,” Mrs. Atherton said as she hurried Hazel along the now familiar hallway. “Her Grace will be so pleased. She’s been very quiet today. It will do her good to see you.”
Hazel nodded, a lump forming in her throat. She hoped desperately that the older woman would be pleased. She hoped the sound of a familiar story would lighten the faraway look in the Dowager’s eyes. She also hoped Greyson would forgive her someday.
Mrs. Atherton pushed open the door to the sitting room with a gentle knock.
“Your Grace,” she said softly, “you have a visitor.”
The Dowager duchess sat in her usual place by the window, exactly as Hazel had left her two days before.
Her posture was elegant, and her hands were folded in a manner that hinted at old habits of propriety.
Her gaze, however, was fixed on the garden outside, drifting somewhere far beyond the glass.
She did not turn at Hazel’s entrance. She did not acknowledge anyone. Hazel’s heart ached at the sight. Mrs. Atherton nodded encouragingly before slipping away, closing the door behind her.
Hazel approached quietly, and her steps were swallowed by the rug’s thick weave.
“Good afternoon,” Hazel murmured, though she knew the dowager might not respond. “It is Hazel, your, uhm… daughter-in-law.”
But there was no sign of recognition. Hazel hesitated. Then, slowly, she withdrew the hidden book from beneath her cloak. Its cover was frayed and faded, the once-bright illustration worn to soft smudges by little fingers.
A Voyage of the Silver Tides.
Hazel touched the spine reverently. Her guilt flared, but her resolve held. She went to the small chair nearest the Dowager’s, sat carefully, and opened the book to the first page. The paper crinkled, and it seemed that for both of them, it was a familiar, comforting sound.
Hazel inhaled, then read softly into the quiet room. The Dowager didn’t move… at least, not at first. She remained facing the garden, with her mind floating somewhere Hazel could not follow. She continued anyway.
“…and Captain Alderidge, standing at the helm, gazed toward the horizon where the Silver Tides shimmered like moonlit glass…”
There was still nothing, but Hazel refused to give up and turned another page.
“…the winds whispered of secrets yet untold, and young Maren clutched the enchanted compass, its blue gem glowing brighter with every league they sailed…”
Then very faintly, Hazel noticed something. The Dowager’s head had turned toward her, just a little. Hazel’s heart lifted in her chest.
“…and though the storm raged, the crew stood steadfast, bound by courage, hope, and the promise of discovery…”
The Dowager turned further. Her eyes seemed to blink with awareness. Recognition flickered in them, fragile but real.
Hazel smiled. “You remember this one,” she whispered. “Of course you do.”
The Dowager did not speak, but her fingers, which were resting on the arm of the chair, shifted slightly, as if feeling the weight of the book in her own hands again, as if some long-lost part of her were resurfacing through the familiar story.
Hazel swallowed against the swell of emotion rising in her throat and read on, with her heart full. Every so often, Hazel caught a faint flicker of a smile ghost across the older woman’s lips when she heard a particularly whimsical line.
Halfway through a chapter, Hazel dared to lift her gaze again. The Dowager was not looking at the garden anymore. She was looking at her.
Hazel’s voice wavered in the most delicate way, but she kept reading, offering the Dowager every comfort she could through each sentence, each page, each remembered fragment of a once-beloved tale.
When the chapter ended, Hazel closed the book gently and exhaled.
“I must go, Your Grace,” she said softly. “But I will return soon. And we shall continue our voyage together.”
For a breath, nothing happened. But then, the Dowager smiled. Hazel’s own heart swelled so completely she thought it might burst. She clasped the book with trembling hands, bowing her head in gratitude and relief.
Just then, the door opened. Mrs. Atherton entered briskly, and her voice was full of its usual cheer. “Your Grace, shall I bring your tea—”
The words cut off. Mrs. Atherton froze, with her eyes wide and her hand flying to her mouth.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh, my heavens… she’s smiling.”
Hazel turned, beaming. “She is.”
Mrs. Atherton pressed her hands to her chest. “Oh, Your Grace… oh, this is… Your Grace, you’ve done wonders.”
Hazel flushed, overwhelmed. “It wasn’t me. It was the book. The memories.”
Mrs. Atherton shook her head, tearful and glowing. “It was you. You brought them back to her.”
The Dowager gave a single, small nod at that, as if to confirm it. Hazel could hardly breathe. She had come feeling like a thief. But now, she felt like a savior, like she had returned something precious that had long been lost.
Greyson had finished his business in town earlier than expected, which was a rare occurrence. And though he told himself there was no particular reason for it, his carriage turned toward the townhouse almost of its own accord.
He wished to see his mother, to reassure himself that she was well—and, if he were so bold to have admitted it, perhaps glimpse the faint trace of calm Hazel’s presence had brought her before.
But as he approached the townhouse, something pricked at him. His own crest glinted on a second carriage parked just ahead.
Hazel’s carriage.
Greyson paused, his hand tightening on the door frame before he climbed down.
She is here.
He ascended the steps and knocked only once before Mrs. Atherton flung open the door as though summoned by divine intervention.
“Oh, Your Grace!” she exclaimed, with a face that was alight with unrestrained joy. “You’re here! Oh, your timing is perfect!”
Greyson stepped inside, glancing toward the hallway. “Is my wife—?”
“She’s with your mother,” Mrs. Atherton said quickly, ushering him forward with fluttering hands. “You must come at once. Something marvelous has happened.”
Greyson stiffened. “What is it?”
Mrs. Atherton only beamed wider. “Oh, you must see it yourself.”
She led him down the familiar corridor, and her excitement was nearly palpable. When she opened the sitting room door, Greyson felt the breath leave his body.
His wife stood beside his mother’s chair. The Dowager Duchess herself sat in her window seat, facing the room this time rather than the horizon beyond it. And her eyes were not blank. She was not lost. She was… smiling.
Greyson froze.
Mrs. Atherton could not contain herself. “Your Grace,” she whispered reverently, “she smiled.”
He felt the world tilt as his gaze snapped to his mother, whose eyes were warm and gentle.
Then, his gaze moved to Hazel. She looked earnest and guilty at the same time.
A soft flush rose in her cheeks the moment his eyes met hers.
Her fingers tightened around something she held close. And then he saw the book.
She had disobeyed him. She had taken something he meant to keep sealed away. She had done exactly what he had warned her not to do. A spark of anger flared… or perhaps, it wasn’t anger. It was fear, that old fear of loss, of reopened wounds, of memories too sharp to bear.
But that fear shattered when his mother looked up at him again, and her smile grew.
It was radiant in its smallness, filled with recognition.
He moved toward his mother as if in a dream.
His steps barely made any sound. His breath lodged in his chest. The entire world felt impossibly distant, blurred at the edges, until only two things remained crystal clear: his mother and Hazel.
He reached his mother’s chair and paused, afraid that if he touched her, the spell might break.
But her eyes lifted to his, warm and aware in a way he had not seen in years.
Her fingers twitched, as if beckoning. Greyson’s composure cracked.
He dropped to one knee beside her, taking her delicate hand in both of his.
“Mother…” he breathed with such tenderness that it threatened to tear him apart.
She smiled in response. Her fingers trembled as they curled around his. He lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss against her knuckles with the reverence of a man greeting a long-lost loved one returned from the dead. He bowed his head, unable to speak past the sudden burn behind his eyes.
Then, he felt her touch. His mother’s frail hand rose to his cheek. Her thumb brushed the skin there as if memorizing it, as if reminding herself he was real… her son, her Greyson.
He closed his eyes, inhaling sharply.
He had not felt her touch, not like this, in over a decade. And now she cupped his face with such love and such tenderness that he nearly broke entirely. Emotion surged through him, choking and fierce.
“Mother…” he whispered again, and everything he wanted to tell her fit into that single word.
Her thumb stroked his cheek again in a soothing gesture from another life, another home, another time when his world had not yet fractured.
For one fleeting moment, Greyson Thornhill, the cold, controlled Duke of Callbury, felt seventeen again; a son, a brother, a boy loved beyond measure…
and overwhelmingly grateful to the woman who had brought this moment back to him.
Even if she had defied him to do it.